


Financial Security

by Knuxfan24



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-20 10:55:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30003816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Knuxfan24/pseuds/Knuxfan24
Summary: Charlotte unexpectedly gets a new case dropped on her, only to find hints of a conspiracy within it.
Kudos: 2





	Financial Security

Charlotte shivered a bit as she walked up the steps to her office building’s entrance, clutching her morning cup of coffee in her hands for a tiny bit of warmth. “Why is it so damn cold today…?” She mumbled to herself, fumbling for her badge to let herself into the building, thankful that the heating was on and turned up.  
She walked into the lobby, before hearing her name as she glanced to the left, seeing her boss waving her over, seemingly rather urgently. 'Oh goodie…' She silently thought to herself before walking over, taking a sip of her coffee as she went. “Something wrong?” She asked.

“Museum’s been robbed…” He answered her, "Practically everything there was stolen."

“Yeah I saw about that, all over the news.” She commented as she took another sip, before groaning as she suddenly realised WHY her boss seemed urgent, “They’re insured with us aren’t they…?” She asked, sighing as she saw her boss nod, “And considering the valuation… My case?”

“Unfortunately.” He confirmed, “I know you’ve had a lot of claims to work on recently Charlotte, but-”

“No no it’s fine.” She interrupted, “Keeps my mind off things. I’ll take a look over it once I’m in my office.” She assured, seeing her boss relax ever so slightly. “Anything else?” She asked.

“No that’s all. Thank you Charlotte.”

“Alright, you know where to find me.” She said, walking over to her office, fumbling for her personal key and letting herself in, taking off her coat and setting it down over the back of her chair before sitting down at her desk.

Charlotte started up her system, idly tapping her fingers on her desk while she waited, looking over at a report that she’d left out on her desk and sighing. “Right I was going to finish that wasn’t I…?” She groaned to herself, pulling it over and reading through it while she waited for her slow office computer to finish booting, swiping her badge to sign in without even needing to look up.  
“Right then…” She mumbled to herself once her system finally finished loading, “May as well take a look at this new case first…” She told herself in the vague hope that it would be something that she could just get right to work on.  
Unfortunately for her, much to Charlotte’s irritation, but also to no surprise, she found that the information she had been given was lacking. “Can nobody read the damn paperwork…?” She grumbled, taking a deep breath and another sip of her coffee, before sending her usual business email requesting additional documents and evidence from the museum. At least she had the time to work on one of her other cases while she waited, keeping one eye on her email client until she received a response.

“Oh good I only needed to send one email for once.” She sighed in relief once the reply came through, with a collection of items attached to the email, which she promptly set to downloading. Charlotte couldn’t help but feel especially intrigued over the presence of security camera footage, it was quite rare that she was given any form of video, let alone some from during a theft, no doubt the city's police department had also been sent it.  
She briefly got up, pulling open her filing cabinet and storing away her unfinished report while pulling out a fresh folder. She sat back down at her desk, sticking a note to her monitor reminding her to finish the other case before starting to briefly run through the valuation notes she’d been provided, feeling her heart sink.  
“Ohhhhh that’s not going to be fun…” She said to herself, already able give a rough estimation of the total valuation her company would need to cover in her head, and it was definitely a larger sum than they’d ever had to cover. She pushed the worry to the back of her mind for a tiny bit, picking up her cup of coffee as she went to look at the security footage out of interest, before almost doing a spit-take at what she saw.

“’ina you… You fucking idiot…!” She said after a few minutes of staring at the evidence in disbelief, rewatching a specific clip multiple times to confirm that she, in fact, didn't need a new pair of glasses. Charlotte reached into her pocket, grabbing her mobile and unlocking it before pausing, "But… Hang on a second…” She mumbled as a detail came to her mind, looking at the footage again, specifically at the date and time stamped onto it from the camera software, “She was home that whole day… I know she was..." She put her mobile down on her desk and carefully studied the low framerate, rather poor resolution footage some more, “That’s definitely… What? This makes no sense…” She groaned, before deciding it would be best to get the information straight from the supposed source. She took a deep breath to calm herself, before picking up her desk phone and dialling her friend's number.

* * *

Knuxina hummed to herself as she idly flipped through a magazine, paying very little attention to what she was actually reading. She couldn’t help being bored, she’d been planning to take her bike for a spin after spending almost the whole of the previous week tuning it up, only to be stumped by a sudden burst of stupidly cold weather.  
She glanced up to look out of the window, seeing the trees outside blow in the wind. “Asshole…” She cursed out no one in particular, looking back down before being startled by her phone, with it almost falling off the side of her sofa thanks to the vibration dislodging it from its precarious perch on the sofa arm. Grabbing it, she couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow as she saw Charlotte’s work number, “Char'? What’s up with her?” She asked herself, before shrugging and answering it. “Hello?”

“Good morning Mrs. Crescent.” Charlotte’s voice came through, addressing her by the fake surname she always did when she had work related business with her, “I just called to ask about your case, are you able to stop by the office today? The sooner the better.” She asked, making Knuxina raise her eyebrow further.

“Oh. Of course. I can make it for 2pm if that’s OK with you Ms. Luni?” Knuxina responded, putting on the professional tone that she absolutely hated using, while also wondering just why her friend was suddenly needing to speak with her so desperately that Charlotte would frame it as a business related meeting.

“That would be wonderful Mrs. Crescent. I apologise for the short notice, but I expect you’d prefer your claim to be handled sooner rather than later. I’ll see you soon, thank you.”

Knuxina looked at her phone as the line cut, shrugging to herself and getting up, “Better be worth my time Char'…” She mumbled to herself as she went to change, letting her hair out of its usual ponytail and putting a pair of sunglasses on before heading down to her garage, needing to take her car rather than her, very distinctive, motorbike.

* * *

Arriving at Charlotte’s work building, Knuxina was given access after saying why she was there and who she ‘was’. Walking into the lobby and seeing her friend waiting by the water dispenser.  
“Ah Mrs. Crescent.” Charlotte greeted her, walking over with a half empty cup of water in her hand, “Thank you for coming in on such short notice.” She said, keeping her professional tone of voice, “I won’t keep you for long I promise.” She added, inviting Knuxina into her office and offering her a seat, locking her door and dropping her customer service tone immediately.

“’ina we’ve got a BIG problem here.” Charlotte hissed in a hushed tone, with her friend raising an eyebrow as she took her sunglasses off.

“I mean I gathered that, why else would you ring me up and need an appointment with me so urgently?” Knuxina asked, seeing Charlotte sit down.

“I got a new case in. One that’s very likely going to cost the company thousands, maybe even into the millions...” She said, brushing her red hair out of her eyes and pushing her glasses up as she pulled up the news report she’d watched before coming into work in the morning, turning her monitor so Knuxina could see it.

“Museum break. So? Why does that concern me? Not a place I care about.”

Charlotte responded by briefly turning her monitor back, finding the security footage she’d carefully analysed to show her friend. “You’re being framed for it.” She revealed, letting Knuxina watch the footage herself. While low resolution, she could easily make out… Herself.

“The fu- Charlotte? What the hell?” She questioned in disbelief.

“I was wondering the same thing.” Charlotte said with her usual, perpetual frown, “I KNOW you’ve been home all week, working on that damn bike.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing…”

“You know what I mean woman.” She snapped, “We both know you have nothing to do with this, but someone apparently wants people to think otherwise. You’re really lucky I’m the only one trusted for a case this big.”

“Reckon it’s Her?” Knuxina said with a frown, only to raise an eyebrow again as Charlotte shook her head.

“Glitchina’s got bigger fish to fry than ruining your already… questionable… reputation.” She said, "It's not her style."

“Oh good so someone else wants me put away! Fun!” The purple haired woman couldn’t help but snap slightly, before Charlotte pushed her cup of water a little closer to Knuxina.

“Listen ‘ina. I’ll do what I can to help figure things out here, but, for the cops, the evidence is right there, alongside the rest of your rap sheet.” Charlotte said, getting up and fetching a piece of paper, “You should probably lie low, stay out of the spotlight until I can conduct my own investigations.” She advised, seeing Knuxina scowl.

“Nah fuck that, I ain’t running.” She insisted, “Someone wants to mess with me? I’ll find ‘em and I'll rip their god damn head off!” She snapped, before Charlotte grabbed her shoulder.

“Knuxina LISTEN to me!” She said, “You’re going to get yourself killed with that type of attitude. I’ll find out what I can, stall things as long as possible, anything I find, I’ll tell you immediately. For god’s sake you’re going to bring the national guard down on you at the rate you're going! That’s the last thing any of us need!” She said, waiting for a response that never came, “Look. I’ll tell the others, their reputations aren’t anywhere near as infamous as yours. Anything we come across, I’ll relay to you, whoever’s behind this, we WILL find. It might take a while, but we’ll do it. Just… Just trust me.” She trailed off, loosening her grip on her friend’s shoulder, seeing Knuxina stare down at the desk for a while before giving a small nod.

“Fine...”

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this mostly because I wanted to describe what Charlotte's job is while also showing bits and pieces of her no nonsense attitude alongside a brief look at how she interacts with Knuxina. She works for a company that handles what are basically insurance claims, with her usually getting cases of high value thanks to her track record for high work standards, even if said standards are caused by her being fuelled by obscene amounts of caffeine.


End file.
